I’ll tell you a secret
when I was a child I too thought my mother vapid and naive
to look so contentedly
while the whole world was burning

I remember the loneliness of youth and
I too drank deeply of the collective sorrows
simmering pain insidious in the veins
it languished there eating me away
and when he left I lay on the grave of my lover begging to be taken

I was not transported so I stood, walked back with snow-kissed coat and hair-
womb swole with a helpless soul I left my girlhood there

resolving to create a new reality
in which I was happy enough for all of us
and life flowed freely from my lips watering every garden I tend
so darling this is where we exist